"Renewable" Electricity Champion Denmark Now Looking Into Nuclear
May 19, 2025/ Francis Menton
At this site, when I have written about countries and states seeking to be among the leaders in eliminating fossil fuels from their electricity supply, I have generally focused on the larger jurisdictions, like Germany and the UK in Europe, and California and New York in the U.S. But there is one much smaller country that puts all of those bigger ones to shame: Denmark. With a population of only about 6 million, Denmark has pushed the “renewable” electricity generation thing well beyond what others have been able to accomplish. According to its official statistics, in 2024 Denmark got some 79.5% of its electricity from what it calls “low carbon” sources. The large majority of that came from wind and solar, with only a minimal contribution from nuclear. As to nuclear, Denmark had in fact banned it by a law going all the way back to 1985.
So then, does it seem like, with just a final little push, Denmark can go over the top and reach the long-sought goal of 100% of generation from “renewables”?
In fact, according to the most recent news from Denmark, it is the opposite. Just during the past week, Denmark has re-opened consideration of adding nuclear reactors to its generation mix. The immediate impetus for the resolution appears to have been the recent blackout in Spain and Portugal, which has been generally attributed to the lack of synchronous generation on the power grids of those countries.
Now that Denmark has recognized the need for some form of high-inertia synchronous generation to make its grid work reliably, it’s hard to see how they can avoid the next inevitable question: Do wind and solar actually serve any real function here? Or are they just a large added cost without any corresponding benefit? It can’t be long before lots of people start pressing this obvious question.
Denmark’s change of course is reported in this May 14 piece from Oil Price:
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2025-5-19-renewable-electricity-champion-denmark-now-looking-into-nuclear
